(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Green Hymnals, page 121, Like a River Glorious, sing it out loud on the first. Like a river glorious is God's perfect peace Overall victorious in its bright increase Perfect yet it floweth fuller every day Perfect yet it groweth deeper all the way Upon Jehovah hearts are fully blessed Binding as he promised perfect peace and rest Hidden in the hollow of his blessed hand Never folk can follow never traitor stand Not a surge of worry not a shade of care Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there State upon Jehovah hearts are fully blessed Finding as he promised perfect peace and rest Every joy or trial falleth from above Traced upon our dial by the Son of Love We may trust him fully all for us to do They who trust him wholly find him wholly true State upon Jehovah hearts are fully blessed Finding as he promised perfect peace and rest Amen. Great singing this evening. Brother Sean Conlon, can you open us with a word of prayer? Heavenly Father, I thank you for this day, Lord. I thank you for this opportunity to be in church today. I pray that you would bless all aspects of the service. Please bless our worship to you, Lord. Just please help us be attentive to the message. I pray this things in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Let's turn to page 127. We're going to sing Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus. Page 127, Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus. Page 127 on the first. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus Just to take him at his word Just to rest upon his promise Just to know the Saint, the Lord Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him How I proved him o'er and o'er Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus Oh, for grace to trust him more Oh, how sweet to trust in Jesus Just to trust his cleansing blood Just in simple faith to plunge me Beneath the healing cleansing flood Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him How I proved him o'er and o'er Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus Oh, for grace to trust him more Yes, tis sweet to trust in Jesus Just from sin itself to cease Just from Jesus simply taking Life and rest and joy and peace Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him How I proved him o'er and o'er Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus Oh, for grace to trust him more On the last, I'm so glad I learned to trust thee Precious Jesus, Savior friend And I know that thou art with me Will be with me to the end Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him How I proved him o'er and o'er Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus Oh, for grace to trust him more We had a nice Father's Day weekend last weekend. Some people got to shoot guns. And then we had some Bible preaching about fathers. And we had some round table pizza. So that always makes it for a good weekend, right? Our service times are on the inside left page there. Sunday morning service is 10.30 a.m. for our preaching services on Sundays. Sunday evening service is 3.30 p.m. We're going to be in Exodus chapter 20, so we're going to be preaching about the Ten Commandments this Sunday night. And then Thursday evening Bible study, which is of course tonight, 6.30 p.m. And we're in Malachi chapter 3. And I am going to preach two sermons out of this chapter. So the first sermon will be tonight. And then our sowing times are listed below. We did have sowing. It was pretty rough out there. It was a weirdly designed neighborhood. Did anybody have a salvation though? No? Okay. All right. Well, at least you got to enjoy some nice weather out there and get a little bit of exercise in. So, you know, and then God of course pays us for the labor that we do, right? So then if you look down you can see the praise report, the salvations, and baptisms, and attendance totals. Last night we baptized our first converts at Seattle. We had three. A whole family came forth and got baptized, so we baptized three. And so it was a great service. We had a salvation up there also. And obviously Father's Day has passed, but this next weekend we're going to have a special church service at Bible Believers Baptist Church. And that will be June 30th through the 2nd. And so we're going to have Deacon Corbin Russell from FWBC Tucson. He's going to come up and preach for us on Friday night at 7 p.m. Seems like he's always with us when we go to Yakima, so I wanted to invite him to come. And then we're going to have a sowing time on Saturday. It's not going to be a full blown marathon, but it'll be a few hours there from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. And then we'll have a meal following the sowing at the church building. So I think we'll probably meet up for sowing at the church building, too. So if you need the address, just get out your phone, type in Bible Believers Baptist Church, and then push go. And that'll tell you where the address is. I thought I was going to tell you, didn't you? All right. But seriously, if you do need the address, just let me know and I'll make sure you can get it. And I'll be preaching there at 10 30 a.m., 3 30 p.m. So Pastor Messler is going to be retiring. And so I'm going to be helping manage that church until we can get a pastor in there that's qualified. So that's kind of the role we're taking on there. So that's why we're having a big weekend. They had 22 in service last week. So and a couple of salvations. So the church is doing really well. They have a lot of new converts and a lot of families there. So that's pretty exciting. July. So I know it's not in here, but July 19th. Pastor Steven Anderson is going to be preaching in Spokane, Washington, at 6 30 p.m. And then he's going to drive to the next day, Thursday, which is July 20th. He'll be preaching here on Thursday night. So that's part of his road trip that he has done. This is the second year he's done it. Last year he was preaching about the 12 patriarchs or whatever, the 12 sons of Jacob. I'm not sure what his theme is this year. So be interesting to find out. I guess we'll all be surprised together. And so if you're if you're going to be here, if you're not going to be at the Red Hot Preaching Conference, please try your best to show up for church on Thursday night and just support the man of God coming here. He's a great preacher. So you definitely won't be disappointed. And July 20th, 20th through 23rd is the eighth annual Red Hot Preaching Conference. And that is in Sacramento, California, Verity Baptist Church. So most people know what that is, but it's it's kind of the first conference that was ever really done by, you know, our fellowship of churches. And it's been a real highlight for everybody's calendar year. A lot of people have gotten married. And as a result of just going to that conference, something there's love in the air at the Red Hot Preaching Conference or something. But lots of red hot, fiery preaching. So that's why it's called the Red Hot Preaching Conference, because it's already hot, almost as hot as hell in Sacramento at this time, that time of year. And then, you know, the preaching will melt the paint off the walls in a lot of cases. So it's going to be a great conference. Looking forward to it. If you are planning on going, you probably want to start making sure your hotel room's booked and all your travel stuff is in order. July 28th through 30th is the Schur Foundation Baptist Church Vancouver, this church here, our five year anniversary. So we made it to five years almost. So we're going to be celebrating by having our founder. Of course, Jesus is our founder, but also Pastor Roger Jimenez, who had the vision to start this church. He's going to be preaching for us. It's right after the Red Hot Preaching Conference. It's the next weekend. So I had to just like really schmooze him to get him to come because he's really grouchy after the Red Hot Preaching. He doesn't like to do anything else. He doesn't like to be away from church. So he's going to be here Friday. So maybe he'll be mad enough and the spirit of Pastor Thompson will come upon him. He'll preach like an hour and a half sermon. So anyway, that's going to be great. But that's not all. We're also doing some sowing on Saturday. And then we're going to have like a family day where we're going to bring the bounce house back that we had for the conference and also the mechanical bull. So that'll be held outside from 130 to 430. So and I think we're going to cook burgers and dogs and it'll be those good burgers, right? The good dogs. And we're also Sunday. I'll be preaching the AM service. But brother or preacher or evangelist, whatever you want to call them, Winfield Fisher, he's going to be preaching at the PM service and he's coming down from Surrey, B.C. So the last thing on here, I know it's been a lot of announcements, but the last thing on here is August 3rd through 6th. And that's not really accurate. So I talked to Rob yesterday and I said, hey, we need a schedule so I can I just keep saying it's a trip and there's no details. So I do have printed out detailed itinerary for the soul winning trip to Toronto. And it starts Friday, July 28th, and it goes to Sunday, August 6th. So if you're planning on having just like this really huge vacation where you do a whole bunch of stuff and it's just like spiritual adrenaline thing after the other. I mean, hey, go. There's a lot of cool things that are happening. I'll just name some of the highlights here. On July 28th, they're going to drive down to Kentucky. So if you were going to come from here, you'd have to go to Kentucky. And I think they're going to Mammoth Cave Grand Historic Tour. And then I think they're going to the Ark Encounter in the evening. There'll be lunch. Then they're just they're going all over the place, but they're going to spend some time at Mountain Baptist Church. There's soul winning kind of peppered in with all this stuff. I'm going to be there from Monday to Friday. Monday, the 31st. Yeah, Monday. That'll be Tuesday, August 1st. Good night. All right. So but then it does go through Sunday and there's like a church service on Friday night where me and brother Corbin will be preaching. And if you want a schedule, if you're interested in going, it's really it's supposed to be really receptive up there. If you've never been to Toronto, I heard it's really beautiful. I've never been there before, but it's going to be pretty neat. So I'll just leave those up these up where the ushers are. I'll just leave one in the pulpit so I can keep telling you about it every single time I get up here. That's all I have for announcements. Besides, let's see. Make sure. What's what's the date today? 22nd. So yesterday was co-house birthday. Miss Sheila's birthday and Karina's birthday is coming up. I think we sang to everybody, though. And then Hannah was born. The birth of Hannah Joy DeHaas. She hasn't been to church yet. She's God's punishing her right now because she's not a church. No, I'm just kidding. But she's she was eight pounds and 12 ounces. And she's my granddaughter. So she's pretty special. A special baby here to me, but born on at eleven fifty four p.m. on June 10th. So anyway, make sure you congratulate the DeHaas family for the birth of Hannah Joy. And that's all I have for announcements. All right. Let's go ahead and sing another song and we'll receive the offering. All right, let's turn to page one hundred sixty nine and our green hymnals. We're going to sing Come Thou Fount. Page one hundred sixty nine. Come now found. Page one hundred sixty nine. Come now found. Let's sing it out loud on the first. Come now found of every blessing. Tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing. Call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount I'm fixed upon it. Mount of thy redeeming love. Here I raise mine Ebenezer. Hither by thy help I'm come. And I know by thy good pleasure. Safely I'll arrive at home. Jesus saw me when a stranger wandering from a fold of God. He to rescue me from danger. Interposed his precious blood. Oh to grace how great a debtor. Daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter. By my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wonder. Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart. Oh take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Great singing everyone. At this time we'll receive our offerings. So if our ushers could come forth to receive the offering for us. Brother Sean can you bless the offering for us please? Heavenly Father again I thank you for this day Lord. I thank you for this church Lord. I pray that you bless this offering that we give to you Lord. Please bless both the gift and the giver. Please use it to further your kingdom in this world. I pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Would you please turn with me to the book of Malachi chapter 3. Malachi chapter 3. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Malachi. No just kidding. John, Luke, Mark, Matthew, Malachi. Malachi chapter 3. As is our custom we'll read the entire chapter. So would you please read along silently with me as I start in verse 1. Yeah that's better. Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple. Even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in. Behold he shall come sayeth the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And he shall purify the sons of Levi. And purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord. As in the days of old and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment. And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers. And against false swearers and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages. The widow and the fatherless. And that turn aside the stranger from his right. And fear not me sayeth the Lord of hosts. For I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them. Return unto me and I will return unto you sayeth the Lord of hosts. But ye said wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. We say wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse. For ye have robbed me. Even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse. That there may be meat in mine house. And prove me now herewith sayeth the Lord of hosts. If I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing. That there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes. And he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground. Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field sayeth the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed. For ye shall be a delightsome land sayeth the Lord of hosts. Your words have been stout against me sayeth the Lord. Yet ye say what have we spoken so much against thee? Ye have said it is vain to serve God. And what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance? And that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the proud happy. Yea they that work wickedness are set up. Yea they that tempt God are even delivered. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. And the Lord hearkened and heard it. And a book of remembrance was written before him. For them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine sayeth the Lord of hosts. In that day when I make up my jewels. And I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked. Between him that serveth God and him that serveth not. Brother Bill would you pray for us? Heavenly Father we have just been afraid to bless the reading of the word. And just open everyone's hearts to receive what the pastor has for us. Alright, amen. We are in Malachi chapter number three. And this study is going to be over pretty quickly. It is only four chapters. But I am going to preach two sermons out of this chapter. So, but I will just begin here with. I am not going to preach with the tithing portion of this. So don't worry. I am not coming after your money tonight. But there is three things that I want to specifically talk about in this chapter. And so just to kind of back up to where we began. God is just kind of ripping on the priests. He is ripping on the Levites. He is ripping on the religious leaders that have fallen down on the job. Even after they have built the second temple. And so last chapter he was also ripping on Judah as a nation. And basically Judah was all that was left when it came time when Christ came. You know the land of Judea. All the other tribes had been taken away by the Assyrians. Kind of repopulated with people that were from other nations and things like that. And so really everything north of Judah was pretty much Gentile territory. It was kind of people mixed in with others. And Jesus was raised in Galilee which was originally when the twelve tribes conquered the promised land. That part of the area was the children of Israel. But when they refused to follow the covenant that God had made with them. Then God did what he said he was going to do. If they didn't keep his commandments. If they didn't keep the covenant. That he was going to curse them. And all these manner of curses were going to come upon them. So God now is setting the stage for this preaching. So Malachi means a messenger. The messenger. And I believe it was actually a man named Malachi that was this prophet. But it's interesting how he brings up in different times different messengers. And John the Baptist is a messenger of the Lord in this chapter. And there's actually two messengers in the first couple of verses here. So let's just get into it and look at verse number one. The Bible says, so point number one is the Lord's messenger. And then there's like a little S there. Messengers. Look at verse number one the Bible says, Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom ye seek. So how many different people is it? So he's preparing the way for me. The messenger. And it says and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple. Even the messenger of the covenant. So there's two messengers in there isn't there? You've got the messenger who is John the Baptist. We know that's John the Baptist. And the messenger of the covenant of course is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one that proclaims the new covenant and preaches. He comes and of course does all the things that he did in a very short period of time. Obtained our eternal salvation by shedding his precious blood on the cross of Calvary. Living a perfect life. Going to hell for three days and three nights. Rising from the dead. But this is 400 years before the coming of Christ. So there's about 400 years of silence where no prophet, at least there might have been prophets but they weren't preaching and nothing that they preached was put into the Bible. So there might have been people that prophesied. We don't know because there's a lot of times in the Bible there'll be prophets that we've never even heard of or they don't have a specific book named after them. So like there's no book called Nathan the prophet. There's no book called Gad the prophet. But yet we know that they were prophets because the Bible talks about them in certain books of the Bible. So anyway, there could have been other prophets. I'm sure other people preached. But as far as God speaking to the world or to this nation through the word of God, where it actually became holy writ as some people would call it or just the preserved Bible as we would call it. So this is prophesying the coming of John the Baptist who is the first my messenger and then the other messenger in this verse is the messenger of the covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ. It says, whom ye delight in. The messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in. But when he came they didn't really delight in him, did they? They rejected him. But when the Messiah was supposed to be coming they thought he was going to be something different than what he really was. They thought he was going to be a king. He was going to destroy the empires that have taken over the children of Israel. But that's not what happened. He was a king though. For that purpose he was born. But they didn't understand the fact that the Messiah was the one that was going to come back. That he was actually going to be God manifest in the flesh. They didn't understand that he wasn't going to live up to their expectations. That's the sad reality of people is that we put expectations on people that are our expectations instead of allowing God to tell us what his expectations are. That's a real problem with humanity. It says, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts, but who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appearth? For he is like a refiner's fire and like a fuller's soap. This is a really interesting concept and there's a lot of things that you can kind of preach off of this. But, you know, a refiner's fire and a fuller's soap. So, one aspect about this is that Jesus Christ is going to be sinless and that because of his sinless life, because of all that he did for us, he can make the most vile person clean and he can also refine and make pure the worst sinner. But also, after people are saved, the Lord Jesus Christ can clean up people's lives. Now, I don't think if you don't clean up your life that you're not saved, but I think God wants us to clean up our lives. After we're saved, right? You know, a lot of people teach repenting of your sins and they just put it before salvation where it doesn't belong, but in reality, as Christians, we're supposed to repent of our sins after we get saved. Because repenting of your sins is works. And getting sin out of your life and changing your habits, changing the way you think, that's hard work. You know, all the things that you've learned until the time you got saved, and some people get saved at an early age, okay? So you probably didn't have much poison in your mind. But some people get saved later in life. And all that stuff that they learned from the time that they were a child, where they tell you that dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago, you have to unplug all that from your brain and let God renew your mind with the word of God. So, Jesus Christ is like a refiner's fire. He wants to purify us and make us sinless too. And here's the other thing, is that when we get saved, God forgives us of all of our sins. Right? So every sin that we've ever committed, every sin that we ever will commit, God forgives that once you get saved. Alright, so that is another way that he's like a refiner's fire and a fuller's soap. Because when God looks at us, God the Father looks at us, he doesn't look at us as sinful. He looks at us as if we have the blood of Christ upon us, which cleanses us from all of our sin. So his blood is like a cleaning agent for sin. Right? And, you know, it's interesting that he uses the term fuller's soap and refiner's fire. So what do refiners do? Well, they make precious metals, they put precious metals through a fire, and it melts away all those impurities that exist. So, and what's scraped off the top of those impurities is called dross. It's the worthless parts, you know, you put like silver or gold, and then you heat it to a boiling point, and then that scum kind of rises to the top, and then you scrape that scum off, and you've got more of a pure metal, more of a pure silver or gold, and that's what a refiner's fire is supposed to do. It's supposed to get rid of the scum. So God, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ, he came to get rid of your scum. So, you scumballs. But that is part of it, right? So, and so what comes out? Pure precious metal. And sometimes that refining fire is putting us through trials and temptations. And then we come out like gold, like he talks about with Job. Job had a really hard, really, really hard trial. The worst that you could possibly think of besides what the Lord Jesus went through, but Job went through a lot. And he said, when I come forth, I'm going to come forth as gold. Because, you know, when we go through trials, we develop patience to go through trials. And when you, the first time you go through a trial in your life as a Christian, it's all anxiety and you're just like, I can't believe I'm going through this. How am I going to get through this? But then eventually that stops. And then you come out and you're like, better for it. And God does test us. He doesn't tempt us to sin, but he does test us to see where they're at. How loyal are they? Can they deal with this? If they can deal with this, then I can give them this. I can work with them more in a way that I want to. But not everybody passes the test. Have you ever heard that saying where it says, those that history is doomed to repeat itself, if you don't learn lessons in your life, then those lessons will just keep coming back upon you? I think God does kind of do that kind of stuff to us. Where maybe we failed a test. Maybe we failed one of the testings that he gave us. Well, he'll probably bring another one again. And you might have an easier time to get through that, because you've already kind of gone through it and failed. Maybe you just learned the key to not failing this time. So God puts us through what would be like a refiner's fire. He wants us to be as pure as we possibly can be on this earth. Now, just because God forgave us of all of our sins, it doesn't mean that currently we live in this state. We're in the present, in case you all didn't know. And what I just said was in the past. But we still have the future. I'm about to say something about the future, too. But we have this, that's how we live. We live our life in a finite time. God lives outside of time, but yet we're already in heaven. I mean, how do you explain that stuff? Well, God lives outside of time. And we are given eternal life. So we're given everlasting life, but right now we're living a part of that life in the flesh, as saved people if you're saved. And, you know, we have to live this life, and our new man doesn't want to sin and cannot sin. The new man is what God gives you when you get saved. It's the Holy Spirit. It's the new man. It's the spirit in you that cannot sin because it's been redeemed, right? But then we have the old man, which is our flesh. And our flesh continues to corrupt. We continue to get old and ugly. We continue to look like raisins until we die, right? And then, you know, God's going to give us a body that can never die. He's going to give us a body that can never get hurt. He's going to give us a body that doesn't have dandruff and B.O. and, you know, hopefully nose hair and ear hair and all this other stuff, right? So we're going to be different. We're not going to be corrupted. We're not going to be corruptible. But the problem is that we have a body of sin, even though our new man doesn't sin. So God does have to still punish sin. And so God can't throw us in hell because he said that he gave us eternal life for believing. So God can't take away our eternal life. So what will he do? Well, he'll punish us on this earth for the sins that we commit presently in this life. And so he does want us to live the best life that we can as a Christian. And if your life is filled with sin and it's just constant, that's all that you're into, and you're living like the world and your friends are worldly, you're not doing anything that God says, you're going to get beaten with a lot of stripes. God's going to spank you. And it's not obviously a real spanking with a paddle or a rod, but he might spank your life. He might make sure that you lose your job. He might make sure if you commit adultery that you're going to get divorced and your wife's going to catch you. Or whatever sin, you know, if someone, if you kill somebody, then God's going to make sure you get caught and you go to prison or whatever it is. But we don't get to get away with it. So the best thing that we can do as Christians right now in this life is avoid sin. And the sins that we can easily defeat, let's try to defeat those, but there's also sins that easily beset us. Everybody's prone and has a proclivity to do certain types of sins. And so whatever your prone proclivity or pet sin is, that's the one that is hard to get out of your life, isn't it? So, but Jesus Christ is that refiner's fire. And, you know, he's going to put us through the test. He's going to try to help us and try to purge those things out of our life. So, sanctification is a word that means the process of getting sin out of our life as we go through the Christian life. It's, you know, it's basically, you know, God sanctifies us the moment we get saved, but we're not complete, you know, but our life isn't completely cleaned up. And anybody that says, you know, when I got saved, I just instantly quit sinning on everything. I've never smoked a cigarette since. I never drank a beer. I never, you know, stole a cookie out of a cookie jar again or whatever your sin was, you know. That's just not true. We still have the desire to sin in our flesh. It's a battle between our soul and spirit. It's a battle between our new man and old man. And it's a fight that you have to fight every day. That's why Paul says, fight the good fight of faith. People are like, Christians aren't supposed to fight. We fight in a different way. We're fighting all kinds of things all the time. We're fighting traffic. We're fighting our flesh. We're fighting battles with our family members, spiritual battles with our friends. And, you know, the more conformed you get to Christ and the more sanctified your life gets, the more you get out of your life, the more separated you get as a Christian, the more attacks are going to come from people. First your family is happy that you get saved, and now you're in a cult. That's the progression, it seems like. Oh, well, you go to church three times a week. Why do you have to go three times a week? It's like, because I like it, you know. Why do you have to watch TV seven days a week? I mean, why are you watching Jeopardy when you should be at church? That's a question that you should ask yourself. You know, why are you bent over and praying in your yard to the dirt as you dig dirt up and plant flowers instead of coming to church and worshiping the God that made those things? I'm good. That's what they say as they continue to just bow down in their backyard to their trees and dirt. It's just, you know, that's just the kind of world we live in, and being sanctified is a hard thing. It's a hard process that we have to go through, and people will automatically separate themselves from us. But that comes through sanctification, and sometimes people just can't hack the Christian faith, and they can't hack it because they can't stand the trials. They have little root in them. Maybe they're not going to church, and the first time they bring up Jesus to one of their friends, they're like, you idiot, and they just give them the business or whatever, and then they never want to bring it up again. But if you're in the church, the pillar and ground of the truth, then you're going to be a lot better off, and you're going to learn the Bible. You're going to get fellowship. You're going to be able to hang out with a peer group that's like you because once you get saved, it's different. You know you're saved, and then you start to see what other people are like that aren't, and hopefully you just want to kind of get away from that life. But let's look at Philippians 1-6. Philippians 1-6. The Bible says in Philippians 1-6, and just keep your finger in Malachi there. Philippians 1-6 says, Being confident in this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. So when we get saved, that's the good work that Jesus has put into us. But he says he'll work in us and perform that until the day of Jesus Christ. What's that day? It's the day that we get to go home, to our real home, not to the home that we're just passing through. So I kind of already talked about what the refiner's fire does, but what about a fuller soap? Well, it cleans white cloth to make it whiter. So like when people would shear lambs. I mean, you've seen lambskins. We kind of had them around here before, and they kind of have that yellow, dingy look sometimes. Well, a fuller, their job is to take something that's white and make it whiter. So if you kind of apply that to Jesus, he's already made us white as far as our sin, where he's taken away that sin, but he also wants to work on us and make us whiter. And I'm not talking about racism, okay? Don't even go there. It's not the whiter you are, the more holy you are. That's what the Mormons teach, but we don't believe that here. But the picture of white is a picture of a spotless lamb or snow that's pure, things like that. But upon salvation, we're forgiven for all of our sins, past, present, and future. And this picture kind of pictures what Christ is like. He's sinless. He's already as white as snow. He's already pure as the purest gold, and he wants us to be as much like that as possible, and one day we will be like that. We will see him and we'll know him because we'll be like him. We'll be like Christ, and how's that? Well, we won't have sin anymore, and we'll have glorified bodies. Jesus has a glorified body. We'll have a glorified body. We are co-inheritors with Christ, and we get to get in on the deal of the inheritance from the Father to the Son because we're all sons and daughters of God also, but not the only begotten, obviously. But we get to get in on that inheritance. But God will chasten us to help us to do better in this life. He wants us to get better, and sometimes to get someone better, you have to spank them. And I kind of talked about this on Sunday, how that if you want your children to obey you and to turn out right, you do have to spank them. And the Bible says clearly multiple times, I showed multiple verses on this, you spank them with the rod, and not like a piece of steel or something with hooks and barbs on it or something. It's just a little switch, and you're supposed to tan their little hide so that they can learn the lesson that, hey, if you're going to do wrong things, if you're going to disobey me, then you're going to get a spanking. So God does the same thing to us. It's the picture, you know, Jesus Christ is the Son, God the Father is the Father, and we're supposed to model that as dads. We're supposed to model the same thing, that if our kids get out of line that we have to punish them to or chastise them, as the Bible says. And what's that doing? It's making them better. Because you know who doesn't get saved at the doors most of the time? The people that say they've never been spanked. Have you ever asked someone if they've ever been spanked and actually got the person saved that said that they never got spanked? I've had them say that, but in most cases, people that say they've never been spanked in their whole life or punished, they don't end up getting saved. This is kind of something I've noticed. And why? Well, they don't understand consequences. If someone's never been spanked before, they don't understand consequences. And so, how are you going to understand the consequence of your sin being hell if you don't understand consequences? If you're not going to be accountable to your parents, you're not going to be accountable to God either, because you don't think there's anything you have to be accountable for. So, let's look at Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6. I'm going to read Isaiah 30 verse 22, where the Bible says, He shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold. Thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth. Thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence. So, he's talking about how the children of Israel, at some point, they're going to get rid of their graven images of silver and get rid of all that stuff, and they're going to, something that they bow down and worship and serve, they're going to throw away like a menstruous cloth, which is, you know, a gross thing to think about. But that's what God's trying to give us, this picture of something that's disgusting that you want to get out of your life. And so, we as Christians, we need to start seeing sin how God sees it. Because as long as we see sin in the way that we see it, where it doesn't seem that bad, we have to see it how God sees it. And, you know, he hates idolatry. It's wicked. And if you worship statues, you bow down and serve them, you know, you ever go to the Chinese restaurants where they have, you know, a little fat Buddha, and he's got like orange peels in his hands, and, you know, a drink, you know, he's got a beer or whatever, whatever they're serving him at, you know, they say that they don't believe in a God, but why are they making an image that they can give food to and drinks? Because isn't that what people do in idolatry? Yeah, it is. So, now you're in Isaiah 64, look at verse 6, it says, But we are all as an unclean thing, and our righteousness are as filthy rags. And we all do fate as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. So, we are like, our righteousness, if we're trying to bring our righteousness to God, to him, if you're trying to bring something to, like, make God happy with you, you know, or try to work your way to heaven, then, you know, it's, to God, it's like a filthy rag, you know, it's meaningless to him, it's nothing, it's an unclean thing. Verse 7, And there is none that calleth upon thy name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee, for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, thou art our Father, we are the clay, and thou our potter, and we all are the work of thy hand. So, and that's the kind of attitude that we should have, that God is the one that's the potter, we're the clay, we should allow God to mold us into the image that he wants us to be. You know, the clay doesn't tell the potter how to make things. The potter tells the clay how to do things and how to conform. And it says, Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity forever, behold, see, we beseech thee, we are thy people. And that should be our attitude, like, hey, don't be too wroth with us, Lord. I mean, you know, as long as we have the humble attitude that we're going to beseech him and that we're going to allow him to mold us, then God's going to take on that role, and he's going to be like, okay, you want to be molded? You know, and some people are like, I just want to get all the sin out of my life. I just want to be the best Christian I can. And then when God starts to do it, they're like, I can't believe God's punishing me. Maybe it's not punishment. Maybe God is trying to mold you into what he wants you to be. And sometimes that takes getting certain things out of your life, getting certain things out of your home, dividing from people that you shouldn't be around, those types of things. But a lot of times people, they take that as some kind of a persecution or attack, and maybe it is kind of that. You know, when your family calls you a cult member and they say that you've drank the Kool-Aid and that your pastor's Jim Jones and, you know, whatever, they are persecuting you. But maybe that's God's way of getting that person out of your life also because he knows that it's toxic for you. And we like to hang on to toxic relationships because we have this, you know, this nostalgia. And obviously if it's your family, your close family, that's hurtful. I've been dealing with some stuff like that lately with some of our church members, and it's hard because I've gone through it, and when I know that other people have gone through that, I at least know how to comfort them a little bit. But it's still hard when your own parent that raised you and fed you and trained you how to ride a bike and just all those things that they do growing up, and then because you love Christ and you're saved now, then they want nothing to do with you, that's hurtful, isn't it? But it also might be necessary because those types of people sometimes can just be a real drag on your life. It's like owning a dog. They can be a real drag. You know, you've got to get a babysitter for it all the time, and it's always got its hair all over your place, and it's begging for food, and you have to let them outside. If you live in an apartment, you have to take them for a walk. Anyway, I'm not going to go off on that. I go to John 15. I'm going down a road that I don't need to go down, but when our last dog died, it was like, my chains fell off. My heart was free. Anyway, John 15, 1, it says, I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. So, who's the vine? Jesus Christ, right? And it says, Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. So, the people that are getting people saved, the people that are bringing forth fruit, that's what it's talking about here is soul winning. It says he purgeth it. And so, what did it say about the refiner's fire? Refiner's fire purges that dross out of you. And when you're trying to get a garment really white, you have to purge that dirt or whatever it is, whatever that thing is that makes it less white, you've got to get that out of there. If you ride on a really white sheet with a sharpie, you're going to have a real hard time getting it out. But this is kind of the similar instance where God wants you to bring forth more fruit, but what's he do in order to help you do that? Well, he purges you. He clips. When you're purging like a vine, you're doing like trimming on rose bushes or any kind of botany. You're supposed to trim trees. You're supposed to trim bushes in a certain way, and you clip those things that are not necessary. I took like a tree cutting class one time, and nobody cuts trees right. It seems like you're not supposed to cut them like halfway through the branch and leave them there because it takes the tree a long time to heal, and they're screaming that whole time. No, I'm just kidding. But if you cut them at a 45-degree angle close to the tree, then it heals way faster, and it's better for the tree. But sometimes trees form, and they have like these two. Have you ever seen a tree that just right from the roots, it like springs up this way? Those are called widow makers, and you're supposed to cut those down and get rid of them. But sometimes there's trees, and they're like a branch will grow weird, and that branch is, someday it's just going to fall and break. So you kind of have to do that. So my point is that when God purges us, sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it hurts us to have certain things purged out of our life for God to bring things to our mind that says, hey, you're doing this wrong. You need to fix this, or whatever. But a purging is not something that feels good at the time. But when you're all the way through that purging time, then you feel better. And you're like, man, I can't believe I went through all that, and it seems like a distant memory to me. Well, then just wait for the next one, because there's another purge coming, right? Look back in our text at Malachi 3, verse 3. The Bible says, And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. So he's been getting on to the sons of Levi, and what does Jesus do? He goes right when he gets there. The Pharisees are already trying to fight with them. But they're not the sons of Levi, necessarily. The sons of Levi are the priests. And so some of the priests did believe in Jesus, didn't they? And some of those believers, so he did do what he said he was going to do. He purified some of those priests, and then it says that they may offer the Lord an offering in righteousness. So there's a lot of offerings going on in chapter 1 and chapter 2 that God was not pleased with, and he said, I won't take that offering from your hand, because you're so vile, you're so wicked. But his plan was to purify some of those sons of Levi, some of the priests believe, and some of the Pharisees believed. But it says, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Now, in the New Testament, we don't offer animals. We offer praise to God, and we do spiritual sacrifices. That's what God's expecting from us. And in righteousness is talking about when you're saved. Look at verse 4. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord as the days of old and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling and his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts. So, and here's the thing, is that people think that God got nice in the New Testament. Have you read the book of Revelation lately? Because he seems like he's kind of mad in that book. And it seems like he's punishing, and he's very wrathful in that book. And who's he punishing? The unsaved, the false prophets, the dogs, all these different wicked people that take the mark of the beast, you know, the same people that people tell us not to judge. God's judging them. God's destroying them. And so God still feels the same way about sorcerers as he did back then. He still doesn't like them. He said, put them to death. And against the adulterers, what did he say about the adulterers? Put them to death. And against the false swearers, if you bear false witness, and someone gets killed because of that, that person is supposed to get the same punishment that you intended to give them. So that could include the death penalty. Now, I don't think it was necessarily the death penalty for every lie that was told, but if you're swearing falsely against someone to get them killed, then what happens to them is what you meant for that to happen to them, that's going to happen to you. And it says, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages. You know, when you hire someone, pay them. And it says the widow. People like to take advantage of widows and elderly people. You ever notice how the infomercials sometimes will be just geared towards old people? They'll be like, sonic hearing! It's like the commercial gets really loud or whatever. People just are trying to snag old people that just don't know any better. I mean, we're living in a technological age that they don't understand anymore. The technology has far surpassed them. So when people call them, they just think, hey, this is just a regular call, just like I got in 1955 or whatever. They don't know about robocallers. They don't know about people that are scamming you, trying to scam you out of your whole bank account. Hey, just give me your social security number and we'll give you back $3,000. Okay. People just go after people that are really in hard times and then would steal all the rest of their life savings from a widow? But this is the kind of things that the Pharisees did. They would devour widows' houses. That's what the Bible says. And it says in the fatherless. People that don't have a father or both their parents are dead or something, those are not the types of people that we should be trying to take advantage of. But yet it happens every day in this country. And they want to adopt children into these weird households and these poor fatherless children don't have a voice to be able to fight back. And it says, And that turn aside from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts. So what is the point of point number one? Well, God wants to refine us. He wants to help us to purge out the leaven in our lives. He wants to be like a refiner's fire for us. And honestly, some of the things that He's going to do are going to be painful to us. But they're necessary, aren't they? So to get rid of that and to purge yourself from sins, God has to kind of go to work on you. And you have to be willing to take that stuff. Because if you don't, then you're just going to keep going down the same road you're always going. Number two tonight, God's call for repentance. And again, I'm not talking about repenting of your sins before you're saved. I'm talking about after you're saved. But God is kind of calling. He always seems to be calling the children of Israel back to repentance to get right with Him. And look what it says in verse six in our chapter here. It says, For I am the LORD, I change not. Therefore, ye sons of Jacob, are not consumed. Now, I was just talking about how the God of the Old Testament is still the same God of the New Testament. Jesus Christ believes everything that God the Father believes. So it's not like Jesus is nice God and God the Father is mean God. They're not different gods. They're the same God, by the way. And it says, I am the LORD, I change not. So, if He's saying that, then in the future, is He going to change? In the New Testament, does He change? No, He doesn't change. He's still the same God. And that therefore is there so you can know what it's there for, right? And it says, Therefore, ye sons of Jacob, are not consumed. What does that mean? Well, He promised that there would always be a remnant of the children of Jacob. He promised to preserve their seed, right? And even though a lot of the sons of Jacob have gone bad and gone astray, there's always been a remnant, and that's why God didn't completely consume all the children of Israel and destroy them. Because He promised Abraham that He would not do that. He promised the other patriarchs that He would not do that. So, He's not going to change. He's not going to go, Oh, I changed my mind. I want to kill all of you now. He can't do that because God is not a God that changes. And the Bible also says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So, what does that mean? He's the same. He doesn't change. He ain't changing. And, you know, the immutability of God means that God is unable to change. So, God cannot sin. No matter how much you want to say God does sin, no, He doesn't. God is incapable of sin. You're like, well, how do you know that? Well, the Bible tells us that. He can't even tell a lie. And isn't that like what the Bible says in Revelation chapter 22 when it says, Whosoever loveth and maketh a lie is a sinner? God can't make one lie. He can't sin. So, He still feels the same way as He did in the Old Testament as He does in the New Testament. But Jesus has come. That's the difference. The New Testament has come. That's the difference. But the way that He feels about sin is still the same. He still hates sodomites. He still hates sorcerers. He still hates witches. You know, obviously some of these people can be saved and some can't. But, you know, He still, if you're committing a capital crime, God doesn't want you around. And so, He hasn't changed about that. What does He talk about in the book of Revelation? Does He talk about sorcerers? He does. Like, they will not repent of their sorcery. So, is sorcery still alive today, right now? Yes, it is. I mean, millions of people love Harry Potter. Do you know what he is? A sorcerer. And it's teaching children in little children's books to be witches and to have you get into witchcraft. There's real spells in those books. And it's getting people's interest in the things of the occult instead of the things of God. And so, Harry Potter is still really popular. Even though the trannies don't like, you know, J.K. Rowling anymore. But, you know, I guess you reap what you sow, right? But, you know, the trannies getting mad at a witch or whatever. So, you're like, well, she's not a witch. She just writes about it. Well, she sure seems to be pretty interested in that topic. And Harry Potter has been a battle. You know, I think Harry Potter books came out when I was, like, in my 20s or something. Never read one of them. Never watched a movie. And my kids, as far as I know, have still not watched the movies. But they weren't allowed to watch that. So, anyway, we do have to have some standards, folks. There's supposed to be some things that we just steer clear of. So, God hasn't changed his mind about how he feels about sin. His wrath is still the same. He still uses the same techniques in Revelation that he did in the Old Testament. You know, and it's really worse. He's like, at one point, he's like, drink this blood. Give them blood to drink because they're worthy. It's like, that's pretty gross. That would be a torture of sin, wouldn't it? To just, here, drink this blood. No, thanks. I'm good. And God's like, give it to them, for they're worthy. Eternal life is the same today as it was back then. God has always saved people to the uttermost. That's never changed. You know, it wasn't like you could lose your salvation in the Old Testament. Now, in the New Testament, you can't lose it. No, he's always been the same when it comes to these types of things. He's always been the same about salvation. You're like, no, salvation was different in the Old Testament because you had to do these works. No, you don't. You didn't have to do works to be saved in the Old Testament. The Bible says that when Seth came upon the earth, that he then began man to call upon the name of the Lord. So, how long have people been called upon the name of the Lord? Since the very beginning. And the Bible says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It didn't change in the New Testament to salvation. It always has been salvation. And his promises are still the same. What about Noah? How was Noah saved? Explain that to me. Was he saved because he was the best person? The Bible says Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. What is grace? Salvation that you don't deserve. Noah didn't deserve to be saved, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was saved. But he was saved the same way that we're saved today. Maybe they didn't call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ back then. They didn't know that name. But now they do. And in John chapter 5, the Bible says that Jesus Christ has the authority. God the Father gave Jesus Christ the authority to save people, to raise people from the dead. When he comes back, people in the graves are going to hear the voice of who? Are they going to hear the voice of God the Father? Or are they going to hear the voice of who? The Son of God. So that's a difference in the New Testament. But it's not anything that's changed. You still have to call upon God to be saved. You still have to call upon the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ is the name of the Lord that we call upon. His promises are not the same, therefore Jacob is not consumed. Let's look back at our text in Malachi chapter 3 verse 7. It says, Days of your fathers you are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But you say, wherein shall we return? And so you see how God is calling them, come back. You've left. You've gotten into sin or whatever. Something is wrong with you. You've left me. But he says, return unto me. So, doesn't that indicate that someone has left him? Return unto me, and I will return unto you. I need a couple volunteers. Adam, get up here. Second Adam, right here. First Adam? Alright, just stand right there. Alright, you're God. And Jesse, come up here. So Jesse, I want you to stand really close to Adam. Like, not close where you're touching, okay? That's weird. Anyway, so Jesse is a saved guy, and Adam is God for this object lesson, okay? Now Jesse, you're pretty close to him, right? So that's how we're supposed to be with God. We're supposed to be close with God. Now Jesse, just walk to the very end of the room where that speaker is right there. See, the further away you get from, you know, it only takes a little, you know, you start stepping away from God, and then you become less and less close. You go longer periods of time to where you're talking to him and praying to him, or thinking upon his name, or loving him, and then they're kind of, it becomes a strange relationship. It's not like you don't love God anymore, but you're just not close anymore. But this is what God's talking about. He's like, Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. So, now, let's go to James chapter 4, verse 4. Are you guys okay standing there? You're not on camera, so don't worry about it. They won't know who you are. But James chapter 4, verse 4, and God teaches this principle multiple times throughout the Bible. Look at James 4, 4. It says, Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with God? So, what does it take to just kind of have a, for God to have a problem with you? Well, it says friendship of the world. If you love the world and the things they're in, and you're entangled in those things, then, you know, then you're going to have a tough time with God, because it says that if you're a friend of the world, you're in enmity with God. It says, Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Now, is it possible to be saved to be an enemy of God? It is, because if you're being like the people that he called you away from, it's like when God called the children of Israel out of Egypt, that picture is that Egypt is the world. And when they would go astray, it's like, hey, I saved you from that. Why are you going back there? Why are you enslaving yourself back again in these things? And it says, Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? It's not in vain. That is exactly what's wrong with us. We always try to go back and we, our spirit wants to lust to envy. We want to have things that we shouldn't have and do things that we shouldn't do. It says, But he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So, what is the scripture teaching? Well, we need to stay away from being worldly Christians. And so this is just one example, but he's talking about being friends with the world and being an enemy of God. And so, our lust will drive us away, just like Jesse is far away from God right now, you know, Adam, he's far away from him right now. But what happens, God's, you know, so let me just define the word submit real quick. In verse 7 it says, Submit yourself, therefore, to God. And a lot of people have a hard time understanding what the word submit means, but it means to accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person. So, it's not resisting, it's accepting or yielding to that superior force. So, we're supposed to submit ourselves to God. And that means whether we agree with him or not, we still are going to do what he says. Because there's things in the Bible that I'm sure that you might disagree with. Or maybe you just can't understand why God thinks that way. And I'm sure we've all kind of run across passages like that. But the thing is, is that we still have to submit to God whether we agree with him or not. And the best thing to do is to agree with God, but it's the same thing with a husband and wife situation. Right? I mean, the Bible says that women are supposed to, or wives are supposed to obey their husbands. And so, you're supposed to submit to your husbands. It's not whenever it's convenient for you or whenever you agree with it. It's whenever, whatever your husband asks. Is it really that big of a deal? But it does seem to be a big deal. And people will be like, well, she's so submissive or whatever. But then as soon as she disagrees with something her husband says, then she's digging her heels in and fighting him on everything. And it's just like, that's not submission. So don't say you're submissive as a wife if you're just telling your husband to go jump in the lake every time he asks something that you don't agree with. Because just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean you're not supposed to do it. Now obviously, husbands aren't supposed to tell their wives to do sinful things. I'm not talking about that. Wives are supposed to submit to their husbands in the Lord. So we're supposed to obey them in the Lord. But when it comes to us with God, then we're supposed to obey God even if we disagree with it. If God says that we're supposed to go so when you're like, well, I don't know. I don't really agree with that. I don't believe in this whole door-knocking thing. Well, you know, you just disagree with God. But you should just do it anyway. And so, what does it say in verse 8? Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. So, he's talking about, so how do you get close to God? Well, you cleanse your hands from your sins. You purify your hearts, you double-minded. Humble yourself in the sight of God and he will give you that grace. Right? So it says draw, so what did it say in Malachi 3.7? It says return unto me and I will return unto you. What's James say? It says draw nigh unto God and he will draw nigh unto you. Seems like a pattern here, right? Look at Luke 15. I'm sorry I got you guys here. But I want to still use you for a minute. Are you guys okay? You need to take a break? Alright, you're good. Luke 15. Luke 15 verse 18. The Bible says, so far I've showed you two sets of scriptures where it talks about how if we return to him, he will return to us. See, because here's the thing. God's always standing in the same place. He's in the spot of right. He doesn't drift away from us. It says that you need to return unto me. Right? So we're not, he's not drifting from us. He's still staying in the same place he's always been. He's God. He doesn't change. And that's it. So when we get away from God, it's not that God got away from us. It's we got away from him. Look at Luke 15 and this is the story of the prodigal son. A lot of people will say, well this is talking about salvation. This is not talking about salvation. It's talking about a son and a father, right? It says in verse 18, I will arise and go to my father. Because, you know, he's kind of, he took his inheritance. He blew it. You know, he left his parents' house. And he just was living his life however he wanted to. And then he got broke and all of his friends left him. And he's kind of like, you know, keeping pigs. And then he's eating the food that the pigs are eating. The husks of corn or whatever. And he's like, hey, you know, it's going to be better if I just go back to my father's house and serve him as like a bond server or whatever. And he says in verse 18, I will rise and go to my father and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. And am no longer worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And what did he do? And what did he do? And he arose and came to his father. So, he's doing what God has already said for people to do. If you've gone away from him, then you need to return. And so what did he do? He arose and he came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion. And what's it say there, the next word? And what? Ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. I'm not going to have you guys do that. But, so Jesse, why don't you just start walking towards Adam. Adam, you see him? Now run towards him. Run! Yeah, run! There you go. See? Okay, you guys can sit down. So, thank you. All right. He's like, are you serious? Yeah, run! Submit! No, I'm just kidding. But, you see the point? So like, when we start to come back towards God, then God is going to run to us and he's going to love us. He's not upset that we were gone. You know, he was upset that we were gone. But when we come back, when we draw nigh to him, when we return to him, then he is happy that we're back. He's not like, oh, let's treat him like dirt for a few more years and then maybe I'll be nice to him again. He's nice to him right away, isn't he? What's he do? He says, and I'm no more worthy to be called thy son. Okay, I'm sorry. Go back to, let's go to verse 21, I'm sorry. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found and they began to be merry. So this picture is God the Father receiving one of his children back that went astray. That's what the picture is. And what did God do? He did exactly what he says to do in the Bible. Now, this is a parable, but there's clear scripture in Malachi chapter 3 verse 7. There's clear scripture in other verses. There's clear scripture in James chapter 4 that when we move back towards God, he was always there just waiting for us to come back. And that when he sees us coming, he's going to beeline towards us. So that is the picture. And so if you've begun to become estranged to God, well, just what does the Bible say to do? It's not really that hard, but it does take humility. It does take you being humble and admitting what you've done. Because doesn't he just say, Father, I've sinned against you, I've sinned against heaven. He's admitting what he's done. And that's the kind of heart we have to have with God. Like you don't lose your salvation when you sin, but you know, you can still make things, you can make things right. And that's, you know, living on this earth, that's what we have as a God that loves us so much that even when we're being idiots that he still runs towards us every time we come back to him. Now look at verse 13 back in our text, it says, Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet you say, What have we spoken so much against thee? You have said, It is vain to serve God. And what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the proud happy, yea, they that work wickedness are set up, yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. So God said, Your words have been stout against me. And he's, you know, it's just amazing to me how people think that they can talk to God and just get away with it. You know, when we talk to God, we should have a humbleness about us. And if you're ever one of those people that's like, It's vain to serve God. What are you doing? You're spitting in God's face. Because it's not vain to serve God. It's not meaningless to serve God. And people that think that are just disillusioned and not right with God. And what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances? Well, you know what the profit is, is that you get to have a better life on earth. Because if you don't keep his ordinances, then what's he going to do? He's going to punish you. And it says, And that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts. Well, you know, you should walk mournfully before the Lord of hosts. So everything that they're saying is basically wrong. That's why he said, Your words have been stout against me. I mean, these are provoking words to God. But it says now that we call the proud happy. So you know, we're in Pride Month or whatever, and you know, this word proud is like one of the main monikers of these people. And when it says happy, I mean, what's the synonym of happy? Gay, right? So gay actually means happy. It doesn't mean that you're some fruitcake that lost half the opposite or the same gender. That's not what it means. But it says, Yea, they that work wickedness are set up. And so like they're basically saying like, you know, God's basically saying that, or they're saying to God, we call the proud happy. Yea, they that work wickedness are set up, yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. And that's not true. That is not true. The proud are not happy. They look like they're happy when they got their little weird outfits on and all this other stuff. But you know what? The suicide rate among these people is astronomically high. And you know what? It was astronomically high before I preached a sermon that hurt their little feelings. It's getting worse. It's not getting better, and it's not because of the things I've said. It's because of what they do. They're filthy beasts. They're animals. They do some of the most violent, disgusting things you could possibly think of, and then they have to go home and live with themselves after they've done these things. So you wonder why they try to kill themselves. They try to kill themselves because they're miserable, because they're wicked. It's a punishment from God to be one of these beasts. It's a punishment from God, so why would the proud be happy? They wouldn't be. They're not. Because happy people don't kill themselves, right? So how happy are they? You know, when they take all these hormone blockers and try to become trannies and whatever else that they're doing. They're not happy. They're sad. They're confused. And all these kids, they don't even know what they're talking about. People are like, oh, these trans kids, there's no such thing. That's my stance on it. There's no such thing. You can turn them into a eunuch all you want, but that doesn't make them a trans kid. You made them a eunuch. You made them a freak, and you're going to have to answer to God for that, the parents that did these things. It's like, no normal kid wants to become some freak of nature that takes all these hormones. They don't even understand that. They want to play with toys. They want to hang out with their friends. They don't talk about stuff like that. They don't think about stuff like that. I had this person email me the other day and they're like, prove to me that there's no such thing as trans kids. And I'm like, well, I was a kid once, and I never thought about it once. They're like, well, that's just one instance. I was like, nobody that I knew ever thought about that. And if you said that you thought about that, you'd probably get beat up. 6,000 years of human history, that hasn't been a thing. It might be like in some weird corners of the Earth someplace, but it's not a thing. It hasn't been a thing. It's a new thing. And so they're not happy. They're vile. They're wicked. They're evil. And I feel bad for the kids that have this kind of stuff happen to them. They get coaxed into these things. Because if it wasn't their idea, whose idea was it? The person that's supposed to be taking care of them? The person that's supposed to love them? The person that's supposed to teach them? It's like, you play with that Barbie. I saw you play with that Barbie yesterday. You're a boy trapped in a woman's body. And then they just tell them that stuff, and they repeat it over and over and over again. Just continue to go against everything that they know and think. And then kids are just easy to believe things. Kids are the easiest people to get saved. Why? Because they believe easy. They don't have a life of hardened sin that they have to get past and their own feelings and all this other stuff. They see what the Bible says, and they're like, OK, I want to get saved. It's really that simple. And that's why older people are the hardest people to get saved. Rich people are the hardest to get saved. People that have lived a life of sin are hard to get saved. But it's just really sad that we have to live in a world where they're acting like this is a real thing when it's really not. It's sick. It is. It's disgusting. It's child abuse. I mean, people want to say that us spanking our kids with a rod, like a little stick, is child abuse. No, chopping a kid's balls off and turning them into a girl, that's child abuse. That's child abuse. So last portion of the text here, verse 16, and God talks about this book of remembrance. I'll try to get through this really quick, OK? So Matthew 3, or Matthew, I keep saying Matthew, it's Malachi 3, 16 says, Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and the book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared God and that thought upon His name. So apparently God's got this book of remembrance that's written before Him for those people that feared the Lord and thought upon His name. And then it says, And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. So just in closing, God does memorialize things. He does think about things that we've done for Him, and so much to the fact that He has written down people that thought about His name. Those things are important to Him. Why do we like knick-knacks and memorials and things like that, little keychains and stuff like that? Why do we like those things? Well, because it helps us remember. It's just like a thoughtful memory, right? So why do people like these keepsakes and you keep all of your kids' drawings from the kindergarten and up or whatever, however young they are? Why do people do that? Well, we want to remember those things. We want to remember the cool things that our kids have done or the cute things that they've done. But God remembers us too. He remembers those that fear Him. He remembers those that think upon His name. Now, is there any entry for you in that book? Is there like a portion of that book of remembrance where it's like, hey, Juan thought about me today. Juan asked me a question today. Juan loved me today. Is anything from you in that book? That's a good question, right? Because the book is real. So is there something that you've thought about God or just something that you were thinking about Him or a time that you have feared God that's in that book? Well, I think that that's something to think about, right? I mean, God thinks about the things that we do for Him and the things that we think about Him when they're positive, obviously. So I had a really good week last week, and I thought that this keychain was gone. I've showed a couple people this, probably everybody. But Anthony, God bless him, went to, I think it was Malawi, and he had these little special keychains that he had made for certain people in our church. And he brought them back. Who got one of those? Anybody in here get one of those? Oh, I'm the only one. See how rare this is? This is going to be worth a lot in the millennium. But on one side it says, Holy Bible King KJV. And he paid somebody to hand-carve these in Africa. And apparently nobody in this room has one besides me. Very rare. On the back it says, God hates fags. This is a memorial to me. I love this keychain because it helps me understand the truth. And it was a thoughtful gift for Anthony to get me, and I really appreciate it. But I thought it was lost. And I was blaming Josh. I was like, what did you do with my God hates fags keychain? And I thought that he lost it. I thought it was gone, but I found it. It was once it was lost, and now it's found. It's never leaving my keychain again over my dead body. And then I found out I was 1% Russian. So that was the other thing that was cool. Now Anthony can love me more. But anyway, the point of just showing you that is, I'm being funny. But God memorializes things for us. He loves us. He thinks about us. And he keeps things in a book of the times that we thought about him. In Psalm 56, verse 8, it says, thou tellest my wanderings, put down my tears into thy bottle. Are they not in thy book? He keeps track of our tears that we cry to him. The prayers that we cry out to him, and it says he puts them in a bottle. You're like, well, how does that happen? Because it disappeared, it fell on my whatever. I don't know. He's God. Do you think he could suck your tears up to heaven? He probably can. I mean, he made the world with just speaking into existence. Acts 10, 4 says, and when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, what is it, Lord? And he said unto him, thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. See, there's nothing wrong with remembering things that are good. And God has a way of keeping track of those things. Revelation chapter 5 verse 8 says, and when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and 20 elders fell down before the lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints. So he does keep our prayers in a bottle. And these vials are offered up with golden in heaven, they're offered up in Revelation chapter 5 verse 8. God's personal prayer vials are there, filled with the prayers of the saints. And he also has ones that are filled with tears. Well, I just kind of wonder, if he has a personal bottle for each person, is there anything in it from you? Is there any prayers from you in there that he's gonna sacrifice in Revelation chapter 5 and also Revelation chapter 8? Is there any tears that you've cried? Well, if there is, maybe it's just like one tear if you're a guy. He's just got that one tear of yours or whatever. But I mean, hopefully it's more than that. But God loves us, he cares about us, he thinks about us. Each individual's important to him. Verse 18 says, then he shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between them that serveth God and him that serveth not. So when we return to God, when those people that are backslid and return to God, he's talking about giving people discernment between the righteous and the wicked, for them that serve them and them that serve them not. And my question to you is, you might be saved, but are you serving? So it's not just enough to believe, obviously it's enough to be saved, but it's not just enough to believe or come to church. God has things he wants you to do, are you serving him? So hopefully you've had some things to think about. And I definitely thought about it when I was writing this sermon. And when you write a sermon, it's a weird experience because sometimes you have to get right with God before you can preach it. And it's just the way it is. So unless you've ever preached a sermon or wrote a sermon, you might not understand that. But it is true that we have to be worked on before we can help work with other people. So let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this book and we pray that you just help us to apply these principles in our lives, Lord. There's so many great nuggets of truth in the book of Malachi. And Lord, I pray that if there's anybody that's kind of drifting off from the Lord, I pray that they would just come back to him and come back to you, Lord. And that they would know just from the scriptures that we read that you'll run back to them, and that you love us, you care about us, you think about us, you have memorials about us. I pray that our church would have memorials towards you and that we would think about your name and that we would weep when we need to weep, and that we would pray when we should pray. Lord, we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. This evening, page 257 in your green hymnals, Look and Live. Page 257, Look and Live. Page 257, sing it now on the first. I've a message from the Lord, hallelujah, the message unto you I'll give. It is recorded in his word, hallelujah, it is only that you look and live. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is recorded in his word, hallelujah, it is only that you look and live. On the second, I've a message full of love, hallelujah, a message, oh, my friend, for you. It is a message from above, hallelujah, Jesus said it and I know it is true. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is recorded in his word, hallelujah, it is only that you look and live. Life is offered unto you, hallelujah, eternal life thy soul shall have. If you'll only look to him, hallelujah, look to Jesus who alone can save. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is recorded in his word, hallelujah, it is only that you look and live. On the last, I will tell you how I came, hallelujah, to Jesus when he made me whole. Twas believing on his name, hallelujah, I trusted and he saved my soul. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is recorded in his word, hallelujah, it is only that you look and live. Amen. Great singing everyone and thank you for coming out tonight. Glad to see you back here Sunday morning at 10.30 and in the evening at 3.30. Brother Bill, you want to dismiss us with a word of prayer?